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ALBUM REVIEW

Araless

Proletariat Rock

Released December 2016

Araless is worried about mind control. “Corporations are mediating our conversations,” he raps early on the first track of his fiercely political punk-meets-hip-hop EP, Proletariat Rock. And considering I first wrote this review on Instagram, a platform owned by Facebook, well, he’s got a point. The chant that follows goes “Money doesn’t make the man; it makes the man a robot.” It’s a refrain that will pop into your head from time to time, while you’re walking or waiting in line and you’ll find yourself muttering it under your breath. On “Rotten Fruit” he unearths the whole system, finding it completely corrupted, and demands immediate social response. The nine-minute guitar-heavy closing track, urges a simpler life, if such a thing is even still possible, before launching into a gorgeously sweet, low-fi hidden song.